'A man for others'

Senators, keep patronage out of choosing Fitzgerald's successor

May 24, 2012

U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald has embodied the call to social justice and uncompromising principles. (E. Jason Wambsgans, Chicago Tribune 2010)

From the moment Wednesday that Patrick Fitzgerald announced his resignation, news coverage highlighted his office's convictions of two Illinois governors. That's a proper epitaph: In Chicago, we judge our federal prosecutors by the battles they choose — or delicately avoid, lest they offend their (and their targets') political patrons.

Yes, some honorable lawyers held the job of U.S. attorney here over the years before Fitzgerald arrived on Sept. 1, 2001. But his 11 years of aggressive and apolitical prosecutions have kept returning us to a question now suddenly urgent: If the traditional patronage system of naming U.S. attorneys in Chicago had produced the best possible top prosecutors, would the Illinois culture of political sleaze have become as rampant, as pervasive, as it had grown by the turn of this century?

Of course not. Time after time, the selection of U.S. attorneys here — often lawyers from the cozy crossroads of Chicago law and politics — was just one more sweet spoil for the party that held the White House.

That's because presidents formally appoint U.S. attorneys, subject to Senate confirmation. But senators typically select the nominees for their respective states. So we'll get right to our point:

Senator Dick Durbin, Senator Mark Kirk, we hope you appreciate how the choice of a U.S. attorney distant from Illinois politics has, over 11 years, made this a better, cleaner state. To you now falls the heavy burden of assuring a continued squeeze on that culture of political sleaze.

Senators, look beyond your comfort zone of politicos and pleaders. Your recommendation of a successor to Fitzgerald will be among the most crucial — and certainly most scrutinized — actions you will take in your entire Senate careers.

"The citizens of this state deserve honest government. ... We'll just keep rolling out indictments where they're warranted."

In his nearly 24 years as a federal prosecutor, Fitzgerald has embodied the call to social justice and uncompromising principles pounded into him by the Jesuits at Regis High School on East 84th Street in New York. We've heard him use the classic Jesuit phrase "A man for others," although never in reference to himself.

So we'll confer on Fitzgerald the treasured accolade "A man for others," recalling his repeated denunciations of criminals not only because they break federal laws, but because they exploit their often defenseless fellow citizens.

That's why a prosecutor nationally known for his public corruption cases also has devoted one-quarter of his 170 attorneys to building complex gang, gun and drug cases that some feds elsewhere cede to local law enforcement.

That's why, a quarter-century after rogue Chicago cop Jon Burge's officers tortured confessions out of people they had arrested, Fitzgerald's office found a way to convict Burge of perjury and obstruction of justice.

And that's why Fitzgerald has tried to educate his fellow Illinoisans on the pressing need to elect a more honest class of politicians to public offices.

"You look to the FBI to do a lot. You look to law enforcement to do a lot. But the real effort to clean up corruption is going to start with the citizenry."

— Fitzgerald after the arrest of the then-governor, Rod Blagojevich, on corruption charges, Dec. 9, 2008

Last August, on the eve of his 10th anniversary in office, we tried to synthesize Fitzgerald's record in the context of his federal surround.

Now, as he prepares to depart June 30, we'll stand by that verdict: Conviction by conviction, guilty plea by guilty plea, Fitzgerald has done what countless well-pensioned officials in executive, legislative, law enforcement and judicial jobs never have. He has made criminals — many of them once powerful — pay a terrible price for their calculated felonies against the comparatively powerless people of Illinois.

Senator Durbin, Senator Kirk, that is a mission well-started but by no means complete. We hope you begin your search for his successor as irked as Fitzgerald is by criticism from government insiders and their pals that he has criminalized the normal give-and-take of politics.

It's a criticism of Fitzgerald, Senators, that you may hear from your friends.

Don't fall for it, Senators. We've heard each of you speak honorably about the debilitating costs of public corruption in this state. As you make your choice, trust your words more than your friends.

"There is legitimate politics. There are gray areas. Selling a Senate seat, shaking down a children's hospital and squeezing a person to give money before you sign a bill that benefits them is not a gray area. It's a crime."

— Fitzgerald after the conviction of Blagojevich on 17 corruption counts, June 27, 2011

Many years from now, Illinois citizens will talk of how then-Sen. Peter Fitzgerald in 2001 outwitted nationally influential fellow Republicans and opposition Democrats to install Patrick Fitzgerald as U.S. attorney in Chicago.

All of us are indebted to each of them — the senator for his determination to reform governance in Illinois, the U.S. attorney for his famously relentless pursuit of that goal.